Order and Creep in Flux Lattices and Charge Density Wave Pinned by Planar Defects

The influence of randomly distributed point impurities and planar defects on the order and transport in type-II superconductors and related systems is considered theoretical. For random planar defects of identical orientation, the flux line lattice exhibits a new glassy phase with diverging shear and tilt modulus, a transverse Meissner effect, large sample to sample fluctuations of the susceptibility, and an exponential decay of translational long range order. The flux creep resistivity for currents $J$ parallel to the defects is $\rho (J)\sim \exp -(J_0/J{)}^{\mu }$ with $\mu =3/2$. Strong disorder enforces an array of dislocations to relax shear strain.

Figure 1

Planar crystalographic defects in bismuth strontium calcium copper oxide (bright vertical lines).[31].

Figure 2

Disordered vortex lattices resulting from impurities, columnar and planar defects of concentration $n_{\mathrm{imp}}$, $n_{cd}$ and $n_{pd}$, respectively. In the presence of planar defects, the planar glass phase is ultimately stable. $\mu$ denotes the creep exponent.